North Korea threatens to cancel US summit: KCNA

Seoul: North Korea threatened on Wednesday to cancel the forthcoming summit between leader Kim Jong-un and President Donald Trump if Washington sought to push Pyongyang into giving up its nuclear arsenal.If the Trump administration “corners us and unilaterally demands we give up nuclear weapons we will no longer have an interest in talks and will have to reconsider whether we will accept the upcoming DPRK-US summit”, first vice foreign minister Kim Kye Gwan said in a statement carried by the official KCNA news agency.Washington is pressing for Pyongyang’s complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearisation. But so far the North has not given any public indication of what concessions it is offering.At a summit with the South’s President Moon Jae-in last month, Kim Jong-un reaffirmed his commitment to the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula.But the phrase is a diplomatic euphemism open to interpretation on both sides.“We already expressed our willingness for a denuclearised Korean peninsula and repeatedly declared that the US must end its hostile DPRK policy and nuclear threats as preconditions,” minister Kim said.In the past, Pyongyang has demanded the withdrawal of the US troops stationed in the South to protect it from its neighbour, and an end to Washington’s nuclear umbrella over its security ally.